Charles p



(ModeL) O. I. BENNETT.

- KNIT FABRIC FOR ABDOMINAL SUPPORTERS.

Patented Nov. '19, 1895.

ANDREW EGRANAM. PNO'lO-UHIU.WASHINGTUN.U.O.

UNITED STATES" PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES F. BENNETT, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR TO J. P. SHARP, OF SAME PLACE.

KNIT FABRIC FOR ABDOMINAL SUPPORTERS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 550,093, dated'November 19, 1895. Application filed October 15, 1894:. Serial No. 525,963- (ModeL) To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, CHARLES F. BENNETT, a citizen of the United States, residing at Ohicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement'in Knit Fabrics for Abdominal Supporters, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to the class of elastic fabrics of the variety in which strands of india-rubber are worked in in the manufacture with the threads of vegetable or animal fiber forming the body of the fabric.

More particularly stated, my invention relates to an elastic fabric having the general characteristics referred to, but which is specifically adapted for use in the manufacture of abdominal supporters or bandages. So far as I am aware, two varieties of this elastic fabric are more commonly used in the manufacture of abdominal supporters. One of these comprises closely-knitted threads of silk, cotton, or other material, having a strand of thread-covered rubber running through each course. The other is a woven fabric, with the threads of which in weaving are fed at suitable intervals uncovered or bare strands of rubber, which are stretched to a high tension in the manufacture, whereby they shall recoil when released and thus reduce the fabric, in its normal condition, to a compacted or thickened form, from which it may readily be stretched in use. Each of these varieties of elastic fabric is objectionable for use in abdominal supporters. The firstnamed, besides being unduly expensive, is too heavy and stiff by reason of the closeness of texture in which it is knitted and of the thread-covered rubber strands being caused to run at each course, and the second-named fabric, while originally woven loosely, is rendered too thick, causing it to be too warm for the particular purpose by the compacting eftions referred to, but which shall be comparatively inexpensive to manufacture, and light, and have the rubber strands employed in its structure adequately protected against moisture from the body, and this I accomplish by knitting the fabric with a loose or open, and preferably plain, stitch of the threads, and having the rubber strands worked into it at most in alternate courses throughout the body portion (though they may be closer in the selvage) and in a convoluted condition, or continuous back-and-forth length throughout the fabric.

My invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure l is a broken plan View of my improved fabric; Fig. 2, a plan view of a piece of the same represented on a larger scale than that observed in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3, a section taken at the line 3 on Fig. 2 and viewed in the direction of the arrow.

The stitch employed in knitting my improved fabric A need involve no novelty, provided it render the fabric loose or open, that illustrated being well known as the plain stitch, which is preferred.

In knitting the threads r of the fabric, which may be silk, wool, cotton, or other suitable material, I run a length of rubber string, or rubber 19, protected by being wound spirally, in one or more layers with thread 0 back and forth through the threads from end to end of the fabric, which I form in a single rectangular piece A of dimensions suitable for an abdominal bandage, knitting it with a selvage 'n at each of its edges, whereby each piece thus produced is finished in the sense that it is complete in itself for the particular purpose for which it is intended and does not require to be cut. In the selvages at the opposite longer edges of the fabric, one of which is formed by the knitting-machine in beginning the piece and the other by stringing the rubber cord by hand with a darning needle through the series of thread-loops produced in the last-finished edge of the piece, I run the convolutions of thread wound rubber through each course, there to render it more heavy to cause it to hug closer the surface of the body to which it is applied as an abdominal bandage. At the ends of the piece of fabric the machine fastens the continuous rubber strand by knitting the threads near the end selvages a through the return-bcnds of its convolutions, as represented in Fig. 1.

As will be seen in the drawings, the rubber cord is loose or free in the thread-loops of the fabric, the open construction of which is such that they shall not bind the rubber cord, but afford to all the lengths of the latter the same degree of extensibility, limited by the equal extensibility of all the loops.

\\''hat I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. As a new article of manufacture, an elastic fabric for an abdominal supporter, comprising open-work knitting having a threadcovered strand of rubber run in convolute form back and forth through it from end to end in, at most, alternate courses throughout its body-portion and loosely confined in the loops of the fabric, substantiallyas described.

2. As a new article of manufacture, an elastic fabric for an abdominal supporter, comprising open-work knitting having a thread- (JOYOI'Qd strand of rubber run in convolute form back and forth through it from end to end in, at most, alternate courses throughout its bodyportion and in each course in the selvage along its longer edges, said rubber strand being loosely confined in the loops of the fabric substantially as described.

As a new article of manufacture, a finished rectangular piece of elastic fabric adapt ed,without cutting, to form an abdominal supporter and formed of plain-stitch knitting with a selvage along each edge and having a continuous strand of threadovound rubber run in convolute form back and forth through it from end to end in, at most, alternate courses throughout its body-portion and in each course in the selvage along its longer edges, the rubber strand being fastened by the threads near the ends in the return-beiuls of its convolutions and loosely confined in the loops of the fabric,substantially as described.

CHARLES 1". BENNETT.

In presence of-- J. N. Hanson, J. H. LEE. 

